Spartan Profiles: Susan Fox

OLYMPIC TORCHBEARER

            One popular tradition of the Olympic games is the torch relay.  For 64 days before this year’s Winter Games in Torino, Italy, the Olympic torch traveled more than 6,800 miles, through 300 towns, passing through the hands of 10,001 torchbearers before it lit the flame.  The relay included the only American who was selected on the European MacDonald’s 23-member team—Susan (Sherry) Fox, ’81, a resident of La Grange, IL, and director of global marketing for MacDonald’s.  Actually it was Coca Cola, an Olympic corporate sponsor and close associate of MacDonald’s, that tabbed Fox to run a 400-meter leg near Pisa. 

            "It was a very nice honor," Fox says.  "It was such an exciting opportunity, we decided to take the entire family."  The Fox clan included husband Ken, son Sullivan, 13, and daughter Delaney, 8. 

            Despite a peripatetic upbringing, Susan attended high school in Ada, Michigan, and transferred to MSU from Penn State when she felt homesick.  “MSU was a turning point for me,” she recalls.  “Like high school, I was hugely involved.  I was chairman of the MSU Funding Board, president of AXO, ran the Greek Games, worked at the Red Cedar Yearbook and the State News.  I wasn’t a prima donna.  I worked my way through school, including three years as a waitress at the Village Market Restaurant.” 

            Susan says her favorite professor was the late Mary Gardner of journalism.  “She inspired me to think of a career and truly think beyond campus activities," says Susan.  “She saw me as a preppy with potential and made me work for each A.  I could not make it on charm and persuasion.  She made me stretch, and that was a turning point”